http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBUWKOt780
In January we had quite a lot of snow (for Britain at least) so I went out with my new Kodak Zi8 to try it out and get some coverage of the surrounding landscape all covered in snow. I stored the footage away and forgot about it until yesterday when I decided to cut together a little video of it all, and you can see it by following the above link.
Just a little something I put together, enjoy.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
"Signing Off" - GoDigital's false claim...
I was just organising my YouTube account, putting some playlists together, and I noticed there was a "copyright infringement claim" or somethingeruther on one of my videos - "Signing Off" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6stcWXqU8fg) - from some crowd called GoDigital who I'd never even heard of until just now.
After a quick search I discovered that this lot apparently use an automated system in partnership with YouTube, which naturally results in myriad false claims on videos. Clearly the music in my short film - created by Brian Wright - must sound a bit like something in their catalogue according to the 'ears' of the automated system.
Naturally I've disputed this obvious false claim (the two pieces of music were made for me, and this film, by Brian Wright who has made music for some of my other short films, and are for my use - GoDigital wouldn't even possess the original audio files anyway, which don't feature on-location audio (bird song, breeze in the trees, footsteps, gasps etc) for those two tracks - whereas I actually do possess the original audio files), so I'll see what comes of it.
At the moment the audio remains on the video itself, and hopefully it'll remain as such, and then hopefully the false claim will be confirmed to be just that - false, as a result of the automated system.
I've edited the info section on the "Signing Off" page to reflect this issue, and thought I'd make a blog post about it as well, just to hammer the point home.
After a quick search I discovered that this lot apparently use an automated system in partnership with YouTube, which naturally results in myriad false claims on videos. Clearly the music in my short film - created by Brian Wright - must sound a bit like something in their catalogue according to the 'ears' of the automated system.
Naturally I've disputed this obvious false claim (the two pieces of music were made for me, and this film, by Brian Wright who has made music for some of my other short films, and are for my use - GoDigital wouldn't even possess the original audio files anyway, which don't feature on-location audio (bird song, breeze in the trees, footsteps, gasps etc) for those two tracks - whereas I actually do possess the original audio files), so I'll see what comes of it.
At the moment the audio remains on the video itself, and hopefully it'll remain as such, and then hopefully the false claim will be confirmed to be just that - false, as a result of the automated system.
I've edited the info section on the "Signing Off" page to reflect this issue, and thought I'd make a blog post about it as well, just to hammer the point home.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Back To The 80s completed...
The epic primary school leaver's musical "Back to the 80s" was completed today, weighing in at an epic 2 hours and 19 minutes.
Similar to Hereford's Got Talent, it was a challenging project what with trying to get the sound as best as you could (e.g. fighting against the large differences in dialogue and music volume), and shooting from far away from the stage, and in addition with this project having a long running time the final render had to be compressed in order to fit on the DVD. Plus being single camera you have nothing to cut away to - so the actual filming in such a situation takes a lot of concentration to keep the frame as steady as possible, while also providing some movement and a range of shots - all without cut aways. It is tough, it can limit you, but it can also work.
Even with technical issues, and the set-up not being a filmmaker's ideal position from which to film, it came out well and I hope those involved enjoy being able to see it again and relive their onstage epic.
Similar to Hereford's Got Talent, it was a challenging project what with trying to get the sound as best as you could (e.g. fighting against the large differences in dialogue and music volume), and shooting from far away from the stage, and in addition with this project having a long running time the final render had to be compressed in order to fit on the DVD. Plus being single camera you have nothing to cut away to - so the actual filming in such a situation takes a lot of concentration to keep the frame as steady as possible, while also providing some movement and a range of shots - all without cut aways. It is tough, it can limit you, but it can also work.
Even with technical issues, and the set-up not being a filmmaker's ideal position from which to film, it came out well and I hope those involved enjoy being able to see it again and relive their onstage epic.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Back To The 80s...
The other day I got a last-minute call to do a shoot & edit job on a project called Back To The 80s - a musical put on by Year 6 students from three primary schools (Year 6 being the final year of primary school before you enter Year 7 and High School).
So I was back in the main theatre at the Hereford Courtyard Theatre, where I'd only been a few weeks prior doing a shoot & edit on Hereford's Got Talent, and I'm now off to edit the whole thing together.
Compared to my Year 6 leaver's shindig, now fifteen years ago (blimey!), it was a big old affair. Our gig was a random show that we put on (mostly left to our own devices) ... I can barely remember it, but I was reminded that I was part of a duo doing corny jokes and funny voices, and then we all got book tokens. Times change I guess, but then again I went to a quite small primary school - and our year was a mere 9 people.
Onwards to the edit!
So I was back in the main theatre at the Hereford Courtyard Theatre, where I'd only been a few weeks prior doing a shoot & edit on Hereford's Got Talent, and I'm now off to edit the whole thing together.
Compared to my Year 6 leaver's shindig, now fifteen years ago (blimey!), it was a big old affair. Our gig was a random show that we put on (mostly left to our own devices) ... I can barely remember it, but I was reminded that I was part of a duo doing corny jokes and funny voices, and then we all got book tokens. Times change I guess, but then again I went to a quite small primary school - and our year was a mere 9 people.
Onwards to the edit!
Friday, 2 July 2010
Triple Bill Mini Musings: Beverly Hills Cop Trilogy...
Beverly Hills Cop:
Until the other day I had never seen any of these movies, but now I've seen them all. The first flick is a fun slice of 1980s action comedy - there's a sense of something big starting to it all, Murphy's career, the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer juggernaut, and the theme tune that overloaded a million keyboards. A bit tame by today's standards both in terms of comedy and action, but even coming to it fresh so many years after it was released, it's a good fun time.
Beverly Hills Cop 2:
The same as the first, but everything's bigger. Respective careers were sky rocketing, the action is tougher and punchier, the comedy is a bit broader, and Judge Reinhold is properly used this time around. Another good fun time.
Beverly Hills Cop 3:
Good God, what the hell is this shit?! The thing with sequels is that there is an established style and approach to the franchise - a film like Die Hard 4 lives up to the established vibe, but BHC3 takes the formula and sucks all the style and intelligence out of it. The opening action sequence flips wildly from stupid 'comedy' (the two blokes dancing at the camera) to sudden-gear-change 'drama' when Foley's boss gets killed.
The park ride action sequence is pointless, the key criminals are boring and toothless, that stupid gigantic gun (with a microwave and CD player attached) is beyond inappropriately dumb, the constant call backs to the previous two movies feel tacked on at best, and halting at worst (e.g. Serj turning up for useless exposition about the art gallery and setting up the key chain flash bomb and the aforementioned huge-and-stupid gun), and generally speaking it just feels cringe worthy.
You can sense Murphy's career beginning to stall and go into self-parody and dim-witted mugging-to-camera ... the fat suits aren't far away at this point. Reinhold is relegated to pointless side character territory (a shame considering his entertaining turn in the second movie) and everything just feels like one big disaster. It's cheesy - in a bad way - it's boring, dull, unfunny and the action lacks any sense of punch.
I'd only heard bad things about BHC3, so my sights were set very low - but even that wasn't low enough. A truly awful movie. If we ever get a fourth movie I do hope they fully recognise just how piss poor the third one was.
Until the other day I had never seen any of these movies, but now I've seen them all. The first flick is a fun slice of 1980s action comedy - there's a sense of something big starting to it all, Murphy's career, the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer juggernaut, and the theme tune that overloaded a million keyboards. A bit tame by today's standards both in terms of comedy and action, but even coming to it fresh so many years after it was released, it's a good fun time.
Beverly Hills Cop 2:
The same as the first, but everything's bigger. Respective careers were sky rocketing, the action is tougher and punchier, the comedy is a bit broader, and Judge Reinhold is properly used this time around. Another good fun time.
Beverly Hills Cop 3:
Good God, what the hell is this shit?! The thing with sequels is that there is an established style and approach to the franchise - a film like Die Hard 4 lives up to the established vibe, but BHC3 takes the formula and sucks all the style and intelligence out of it. The opening action sequence flips wildly from stupid 'comedy' (the two blokes dancing at the camera) to sudden-gear-change 'drama' when Foley's boss gets killed.
The park ride action sequence is pointless, the key criminals are boring and toothless, that stupid gigantic gun (with a microwave and CD player attached) is beyond inappropriately dumb, the constant call backs to the previous two movies feel tacked on at best, and halting at worst (e.g. Serj turning up for useless exposition about the art gallery and setting up the key chain flash bomb and the aforementioned huge-and-stupid gun), and generally speaking it just feels cringe worthy.
You can sense Murphy's career beginning to stall and go into self-parody and dim-witted mugging-to-camera ... the fat suits aren't far away at this point. Reinhold is relegated to pointless side character territory (a shame considering his entertaining turn in the second movie) and everything just feels like one big disaster. It's cheesy - in a bad way - it's boring, dull, unfunny and the action lacks any sense of punch.
I'd only heard bad things about BHC3, so my sights were set very low - but even that wasn't low enough. A truly awful movie. If we ever get a fourth movie I do hope they fully recognise just how piss poor the third one was.
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